JoWood was associated with some good games a while back, but more recently they've been an absolutely terrible publisher, running franchises into the ground and rushing out steaming piles of crap. Good riddance and about time, I say. Hopefully PB will get back the rights to Gothic fairly quickly so they can do more than just an implied connection between the Gothic and Risen games. And in case JoWood going under affects the GoG catalog I'd recommend that anyone who enjoys RPGs pick up the Gothic games if you haven't already.

I hope there is a sale here at GOG before (if or when) the JoWood titles disappear. I've been keeping my eye on Neighbors from Hell waiting for it to get a little cheaper for quite a while now.

I'd REALLY like to know what this means for GOG... I fully intend on selecting Gothic II as my free game, and I have a moderate interest in Neighbors From Hell.

Even though they made bad decisions it's sad to see JoWood go :(

Okay. Lets spam GG for a Spellforce sale! :D

As far as Gothic 2 is concerned, Piranha Bytes claim they never actually lost the IP - they just agreed to let JoWood use it for a while. I don't know if we can take that at face value. But it does seem like they've got the IP back.

Thing is, even though they're credited on GOG, they haven't actually signed up. So GOG will have to negotiate.

*Checks the JoWood catalogue on GOG*

I've got a Spellforce backup copy already and Gothic 2 is the game I'm fetching for free when Witcher 2 arrives. Hurry up May 17!

Not overly interested in the other titles / got enough games already.

I think awhile back, a GOG staff member said the games should be unaffected?

I could be wrong though.

Which is why I wonder if they even have such a deal with JoWood in place at all. They might just be hoping to buy the rights back on the cheap now that JoWood pretty much has to take whatever offers it can get.
You'll still be able to download the ones you've bought. But they can't possibly guarantee that you'll still be able to buy them.

Here it is.

http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/jowood_is_out_of_money/post82

Who knows?

Yeah it is weird to say but the gamining industry will not be at a loss for Jowood going under. I do feel sorry for the staff though as most of them will be hard workers and dont deserve to lose their jobs. Top management on the other hand well they just made bad decision after bad decision.

The thing i found funny was spellforce 2 next expansion pack made several years after the release of the last expansion pack when most people have moved on. It looked as if they where just using same engine added a couple of things and they still couldnt release it even after it was mentioned for about a year.

Joweood did start off well with some good ip's but they just milked them to death with little investment in them and now they have found doing things on the cheap is not the way to go.

Hopefully the games on gog will remain but who knows with the way the games industry is you can never tell.

Piranha Bytes owns total distribution rights to the first Gothic game because it was released before JoWooD's time; JoWooD has the right to sell it in compilations but cannot sell it separately. This is why you can't buy the first Gothic on Steam, GamersGate and the like except as part of a compilation or through Piranha Bytes publishing it themselves.

The only confusion over this is regarding the timing of whether they will have the rights back by the time Risen II gets released. Their control over the Gothic IP in general is much more clear.

JoWooD's rights to the Gothic IP relied on Piranha Bytes' input. They were required to give Piranha Bytes "first option" to produce a Gothic 4 addon and the Gothic 5 base game before either could be offered to any other developer (with the proviso JoWooD would publish the resulting products). What happens beyond Gothic 5 isn't known but it certainly sounds like Piranha Bytes holds the rights in the long term.

Whether the rights will default back to Piranha Bytes upon JoWooD's final closure will depend on the terms of the agreement, and it's this that's leading to conflicting statements from Piranha Bytes; it's made especially difficult by the Gothic 4 addon being finished but unreleased (so it may not actually count), and while JoWooD never made a Gothic 5 the specific wording of the agreement may mean that the standalone nature of the Gothic 4 addon will make it count as a Gothic 5 despite not bearing that name.

In short, it wasn't very clear before and JoWood's predicament has made a right mess of things.

We'll just have to wait and see. That's all there is to be done.

The statement was made in time when there was still a possibility that JoWood could secure more funds in order for company restructuring plan to go forward. As negotiations have failed all company assests will be liquidated (in effect, they'll be sold off to cover companys acumulated depths) so fate of it's franchises is in the hands of possible buyers.